Mad About the “Kenyan”

By Calvin Hill

Did you ever wonder why no other Republican stood by, or with, John McCain when he publicly acknowledged Presidential candidate, Barack Obama’s US citizenship? Did you wonder why the conservative media were praising then Senator Obama for getting into the 2008 primary when they thought it would harm Hillary Clinton’s apparent march to the nomination? Was it a coincidence that the conservative praise for Obama immediately became a flood of racial tropes, too numerous to mention, as soon as the polls appeared he could win the nomination – or was it a predictable measure of history? The familiarity of Congress denying the equality of voter access, 56 years after it was settled, indicates it was the latter.

The popularity of the first black President of the United States, and his swing state victories, opened a well-worn crack in the Pandora’s box of Republican racism kept secluded by Mitch McConnell. The prevailing wisdom is that Donald Trump gave the racists and white supremacists the courage to come out of the closet and broadcast their displeasure with the “others” having coequal license in America. But make no mistake; the idea came from the senior Senator from the Commonwealth of Kentucky and his resentment of having to address Barack Obama as Mr. President. Subsequently, the Republican Party had a closed-door meeting where it was commanded that the party would not support any Obama policies at the legislative level. Surely no junior Senator, or House leader, no matter how virulently racist or charismatic, could command or organize such a meeting – or demand the adherence to its agenda.

When media personality, Sean Hannity, disparaged Pres. Obama’s inability to fulfill the vacancies on the federal bench, McConnell, wearing a Cheshire cat grin, bragged that he liked to feel that he had something to do with that. Moscow Mitch, as Joe Scarborough of MSNBC anointed him, refused to allow Obama Supreme Court choice Merrick Garland a hearing even after Republican Utah Senator Orrin Hatch lobbied for the choice. Such an unethical exploit should not have prevented GOP Senators from choosing to sit down with the candidate anyway or informing the media of the unfairness of the stunt. There is a general belief that Donald Trump commandeers the Republican Party. From the standpoint that he controls their primary process because of the magnitude of his hold on a large part of the base, that is accurate. But to the general welfare of the American people, their inalienable rights and the sanctity of the planet, Mitch McConnell is a one man wrecking crew. Unfortunately, in his thirst and quest for more and more power, McConnell created a monster.

Donald Trump spent months before the 2020 election convincing Americans that he could not lose to Joe Biden. And he has spent every day after the election lying that he did not lose. However, Trump’s actions acknowledged that he always knew he could lose to Biden. It was the reason he spent the entirety of his presidency trying to manufacture non-existent crimes and fake investigation announcements against the former Vice President of the popular Barack Obama.

The Senate GOP, under Mitch McConnell, is not the body of Constitutionally dedicated statesmen that sent Richard Nixon packing for just one of the many obstruction acts that encompassed Donald Trump’s dalliances with his Russian puppet master. Today’s Republicans seem to have no mind of their own, and even less ethics and honor. In the battle for voting rights, Sen. Mitt Romney argues that the White House did not approach him for a bipartisan solution. That is thoroughly dishonorable. The voting rights bills have been in the Senate for months. If Romney, or any Republican Senator had a sincere interest in guaranteeing the franchise, presently being hijacked by multiple state legislatures, they could have approached the Democrats and the White House with their own proposals. Bipartisanship calls for them to do so. No rule stops them from doing so – only Mitch McConnell.

Keeping black Americans from voting is McConnell’s “winning issue.” It is his assurance that neither he, nor any white person, will ever have to call another black natural born citizen, Mr. or Madam President. Why Sen. Tim Scott is willing to subject his family, relatives or fellow South Carolinians to such an overt degree of racism is anyone’s guess. Mitch had no problem making Scott available to the media as the GOP face of police reform. But as the battle for voting rights rages on, and the apparent prohibition of such for people of color in several states, Sen. Scott is in McConnell’s personal Witness Protection Program.

The relatively easy manner in which the Republican Party relinquished its integrity at the racist rhetoric of a game show host, who discriminated in housing, committed fraud in more than one endeavor and openly admits that his attacks on the press are to condition the people not to believe any bad truths about him does not speak well of their party. With leaders such as Trump and McConnell, who continue to harbor a deep-seated resentment that a black man was legitimately elected President of the United States, yet spoke no resentment when a Confederate flag paraded through the Capitol or denounced a Trump supporter wearing a shirt in praise of Auschwitz on Jan. 6^th, I’m afraid most of us will not live to see the dream of Dr. King’s “one day.”

Over this Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, the rank Republican hypocrisy and fake praise for Dr. King was nauseating, but fully expected. We were inundated with positive pronouncements from numerous Republicans of their belief of judging by the content of one’s character, not the color of their skin. In the brief but storied career as a civil rights leader, this is the one short part of one speech that they repeat in alleged reverence of King. They conveniently leave out the very beginning of the sentence – “I have a dream that one day…” There is little evidence that in the Republican Party that that one day has come.

In Biden’s recent speech promoting voting rights, he asked the Congress and the country if they wanted to be on the side of George Wallace, Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis, or voting rights luminary, John Lewis. Caucasians of both parties, in politics and media, asserted their disappointment with the President’s comparison and his tone. But for persons of color, the tone of voter suppression coming out of many state legislatures sounds amazingly like George Wallace – “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”